1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an adjustable belt fastener and, more particularly, to an improved adjustable belt fastener including a buckle member and a slot member attached to opposite ends of a belt, the slot member containing a series of slots and the buckle member having a spring biased tongue for selectively engaging in one of the slots depending upon the desired length of the belt.
2. Description of Related Art
Various types of adjustable belt fasteners are known in the art. Such conventional adjustable belt fasteners suffer from a number of problems such as, for example, they are difficult to lock in and unlock from both ends of the belt because the locking pin is not firmly engaged since the pin can readily break away from the bore. Furthermore, such conventional fasteners are complicated in structure, expensive to manufacture, difficult to use, and readily break away from the belt.
In order to avoid such problems, U.S. Pat. No. 5,579,563, issued to the present Inventor, discloses an adjustable belt fastener including a male fastener member adapted to be attached to one end portion of a belt, the male fastener member including a spring biased operating plate provided with a tongue member, and a female fastener member adapted to be attached to the other end portion of the belt, the female fastener member including a plurality of slots for selectively receiving the tongue member of the spring biased operating plate.
FIG. 1 shows a perspective view of the adjustable belt fastener of U.S. Pat. No. 5,579,563 and FIG. 1A shows an operation of the belt fastener of FIG. 1.
As shown in FIG. 1, the adjustable belt fastener includes a male fastener member 8 and a female fastener member 10 attached to end portions 5a, 5b of a belt 5. The female fastener member 10 has a plurality of slots 3 attached to one end portion 5b of the belt 5 for selectively receiving a tongue 2 extending from an operating plate body 7 of the male fastener member 8. The operating plate body 7 is pivotally moved by a spring 9 to engage the tongue 2 into the slot 3. Here, the tongue 2 is positioned at the front portion of the male fastener member 8.
Once the tongue 2 is inserted into the appropriate slot 3, the tongue 2 is hooked around a right-angled protrusion 3a, as shown in FIG. 1A. However, since the tongue 2 hooks around the protrusion 3a and the pressing portion of the operating plate body 7 is positioned in the middle of the male fastener member 8, the tongue 2 can be accidentally or inadvertently released from the slot 3 when a force is pressed upon the operating plate body 7 in the direction indicated by arrow P as shown in FIG. 1A.